A bufferless ring network is a ring network that connects multiple nodes and implements data transfer between the multiple nodes. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a bufferless ring network. As shown in FIG. 1, the bufferless ring network includes four nodes, a node 1 is connected to a node 2, the node 2 is connected to a node 3, the node 3 is connected to a node 4, and the node 4 is connected to the node 1. As shown in FIG. 1, a timeslot (the timeslot is a carrier for transmitting and carrying data) is used to transmit data between the nodes. The timeslot may be transmitted in a clockwise or anticlockwise direction. FIG. 1 shows an example in which the timeslot is transmitted in the clockwise direction. As shown in FIG. 1, if the node 1 needs to transfer data 1 to the node 3, the node 1 adds the data 1 to a currently received timeslot 1, and transfers the timeslot 1 to the node 2. After the node 2 receives the timeslot 1, the node 2 directly transfers the timeslot 1 to the node 3. Then the node 3 receives the data 1. A principle for transferring data between other nodes is the same.
In the bufferless ring network, interdependent data usually needs to be transferred between nodes. For example, completion of transferring the data 1 depends on completion of transferring data 2 (that is, the data 1 can be successfully transferred only after the data 2 is successfully transferred). The data 1 and the data 2 are interdependent data, and the data 2 is depended data. To ensure that depended data is successfully transferred, at least one dedicated timeslot needs to be reserved for each node that needs to send the depended data to transmit the depended data (that is, the dedicated timeslot can be used to transmit only the depended data). More reserved dedicated timeslots indicate a longer message transmission delay.
It is found from practice that a large quantity of nodes need to transmit depended data. Therefore, many dedicated timeslots need to be reserved. This causes a long data transmission delay.